Residents on Eastfield Road in Driffield are fed-up of damage being caused to their cars because of poor parking.

They’re angry East Riding Council won’t let them park on the grass verges, meaning traffic is regularly knocking off wing mirrors and scratching their vehicles.

The past two years has seen a debate between East Riding Council and residents over how parking can be improved to prevent any further expense in repairs, but so far, nothing’s been agreed.

Michelle Foster, who’s lived on the road for over 20 years, says it’s getting too expensive for residents to afford the repairs:

“My car has had about £16-18,000 worth of damage done to it. Luckily, up to now, I’ve managed to find the people who’ve hit our car, but somebody hit the side of a car about a month ago and it’s costing people over £100 to replace their wing mirrors.”

She explains what the council have proposed to do won’t solve the problem:

“They’re thinking of putting yellow lines on the road. One side of the road will have a yellow line, and then there’ll be a parking place, and doing it alternate; but that’s just not an option, as a lot of people have two cars, work vehicles, so where are the other vehicles going to park?”

Mrs Foster says money seems to be the biggest problem preventing the Council from taking action:

“It’s going to cost £200,000 to redo the road. Residents have said if we could take the grass off ourselves and put paving slabs or anything down so we could park there, so it’d be solid; But the Council would not agree to anything like that because they say it’s up to them to keep up the maintenance.”

She’s worried emergency vehicles can’t get access if they’re needed:

“If everybody parked on the roads like they want us to there’s no way a fire engine could come up here. It would have a lot of problems, so would an ambulance. It could be putting somebody’s life at risk. Because I mean, in the middle of the night, if a fire engine has to come up, whose door does he knock on to ask to move your car?”

In a statement, Mike Featherby, Head of Streetscene services for East Riding of Yorkshire Council, says:

“This issue is not unique to Eastfield Road, and we get many similar requests across the East Riding as the trend for residents owning more than one vehicle grows.

“We have looked into the possibility of widening this particular road, but it would cost more than £200,000. Unfortunately, given the current financial pressures on the council’s budget, we cannot justify this cost.

“it would be possible to introduce a Traffic Regulation Order to prevent parking along one side of the road, or erect a sign, to make it an offence to park on the verges, to try to tease this problem. However we feel these would be unpopular with residents as they are the ones parking along the road.

“Another option would be for residents to construct their own vehicular accesses into their gardens, but this would be at their own cost.”